Recently, government representatives and civil society participants from across the globe came together in New York for the exciting ‘Social Good Summit #2030NOW’ to discuss how technology can improve lives for all of us and find new ways and solutions to end poverty. Reducing poverty is as much a challenge as bridging the growing divide between the rich and the poor.

Six months ago, the World Bank Group established our two goals: to end extreme poverty by 2030 and boost shared prosperity for the bottom 40 percent of the population in developing countries. Meeting these goals has become the central purpose of our institution. The goals are ambitious, but we can achieve them -- if we engage all partners.

It’s an important week for the World Bank. A few days ago its president Jim Kim revealed a new strategy to end poverty and boost shared prosperity. A new internal structure to match those ambitions is expected. The new strategy highlights the role of inequality in hampering progress. It says:

When the world’s governments meet at a special session of the UN this week to take stock of toward the Millennium Development Goals and negotiating a blueprint for global development, my message to them will be that only by confronting inequality head-on will poverty be overcome.

Because of austerity, Europeans may have to live through the type of disastrous period experienced by Latin Americans, Asians and Africans in the 1980s and 1990s.

Europe's aggressive plans to balance the books by slashing public spending are proving to be a disaster. By ignoring mistakes from history, Europe risks repeating them. The most vulnerable people in Europe are facing an ‘austerity winter' that could last a generation.

Uganda’s first female aeronautical engineer, Winnie Byanyima became executive director of Oxfam International in April 2013. According to Byanyima, her background as aeronautical engineer helped her develop strong analytical skills.

Prior to taking up her current role, she served as director of the UN

Program’s gender team and previously headed the African Union’s Directorate of Women, Gender and Development.

Shocking new statistics released by Oxfam this week have shown that governments are letting people hide at least $18.5 trillion in offshore tax havens. Yes, you read that right: not $18.5 million, or even $18.5 billion, but $18.5 trillion!

If you think this is an outrage, share these graphics (below) with your friends online; or send them to your goverment's leader so they hear your voice.

Several African countries are amongst today’s fastest growing economies in the world, boosted in many instances by new discoveries of oil, natural gas and strategic mineral reserves. Extreme poverty on the continent is in decline, and progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals has accelerated. A number of very poor African countries, including Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Ethiopia have made recent and substantial improvements in their levels of income equality.